Most Beautiful Ugly
by littledarkangelhippie
Summary: In over ninety percent of most births, a woman defecates herself because she cannot control which hole she is pushing through. It is hard to believe that he was born from such soiled beginnings and he still turned out so beautiful.


**A.N.****: This came as a surprise. I was trying to force out some inspiration (never a good idea, by the way) and ****_this _crawled its way out of me. So. I hope you enjoy.**

**Warning****: Mature themes.**

**Disclaimer****: I do not own ****_Shingeki no Kyojin_.**

When a baby is born, it is messy and slippery and wailing and wrinkled and just a little hideous. Not at all like in the books, where the picture is painted neat and innocent. There is a woman in agony and a serious doctor and rushing nurses and a panicking father and that single afterthought of a worry carved deep into the back of all of their eyelids, wondering if the baby will survive this at all. There is sweat and blood and _actual shit_, because in over ninety percent of most births, a woman defecates herself because she cannot control which hole she is pushing through. It is disgusting and gory and disorderly chaos, and the screaming of the infant is bloodcurdling and nerve-wracking and skin-chilling.

And yet, for some reason, the doctor heaves a sigh at the sound of it. The father crumples into tears. The nurses give breathless laughs. The mother, trembling with exhaustion and with every bone in her body pleading for rest, wraps the baby in a tender embrace and kisses its sticky forehead adoringly.

And yet, they can all find some beauty in its ugliness.

That part—the sweetness of the moment after all of its horribly nauseating procedures—had always escaped Hanji's mind no matter how many times she had researched the act of childbirth or how many times she had sat through her medical lessons during training.

That part—with all of its confounding miracles—had always been the very last thing to register in her hungry mind.

Her hands knew how to perform the act. How the mother should breathe to ease the process and how the muscles around the vagina will convulse when the infant is beginning its journey out into the world. How the head of the infant will protrude and how blood will coat its small body in streaks over flushed pink flesh. How to tell when the cries are healthy and how to cut the umbilical cord correctly.

Her eyes soak in the images without her asking them to. She knew how to clean the baby and how to wrap it up so its frail body will not get cold. She knew that the placenta would follow soon after and how the minutes between the actual birth and its arrival will seem like eternity when waited on too long, or an instant when not. She knew how deep the blood can drench into cloth and how long after labor the mother should rest.

She knew how to determine the health of an infant by its reddened chubby face and its grasping nubby fingers.

What she didn't know, and what she didn't think to learn, was how the mother's eyes would light up, or how the look on her face would look like that of a human witnessing the rise of the sun for the very first time in their life; how her lips meet its shit-covered forehead despite all the pain it took for it to be; how the father will fall to his knees beside her and cradle the back of its head so carefully it broke a soul somewhere; how tears will well up in their eyes and how the baby, alive and _theirs_, would stare back at them with untainted wonder.

What she didn't know was that even though humans were born out of repulsive beginnings and sanguineous happenings, they were still somehow beautiful to someone.

~~...~~X~~...~~

Hanji will always be enveloped in her experiments, and that was a fact no human in this small, small world could ever deny. Her skin is drenched with the smell of chemicals and her hair is slick with her sweat from hours spent slaving over thoughts and theories she will one day prove—somehow, someway, to someone—and her eyes are ravenous with the desire for _more—_more knowledge, more subjects, more discoveries, more, more, _more_.

Nothing at all can make Hanji as excited. Her mouth waters, her face flushes, her eyes glaze, her body thrums with _want_, and nothing at all can take that feeling away. And she will admit, wiping her mouth with her sleeve and cocking her brow high, that nothing at all could cause that feeling more. Not even another person.

So invested in her own thoughts and concepts and curiosity that she never takes the time to explore the feeling _outside _of what she already knew it to be. It began and ended at science. And that was all it would ever be.

Everyone else looks at her as if she is insane, and perhaps, perhaps she is. She will never deny that she is and she will never try to prove otherwise.

This—all of the research and inquiries and hypotheses and wants—is as much a part of her as she is of it.

And that would always be a fact no human in this tiny, cramped world could ever deny.

Her perception of life and its qualities is obscured by her obsessions.

Beauty, to Hanji, is the smell of antiseptic and morphine and brand new chemicals. It is shining surgical instruments laid out on a table, gleaming in the promise of new feats uncharted by anyone else. It is the sizzling, steaming blood of a creature she would die to examine up close. It is the feeling of exhaustion in her muscles and the pang of a headache at her temples after a long day spent uncovering past uncovered things.

It is the stretch and pull of her mind drinking in _more_.

~~...~~X~~...~~

It is hard to believe that Levi was ever actually _born_.

The thought of him, tiny and wrinkly and smeared with fecal matter and blood, was difficult to conjure. It is impossible to paint the picture as she knew it to be. His mother, with perhaps his black hair and some generic brown eyes, sucking in air desperately and clawing at his father's hands urgently—tendrils of inky strands sticking to her face and throat, a sheet of sweat covering her writhing body; her vagina, like every other Hanji has ever seen at times like these, convulsing and opening wide for his coming. It is implausible to consider that he, with all of his immaculate, meticulous, fussy tendencies, would come to be in such a violent, messy way. That he had literally come, _screaming_, out of a vagina covered in _bodily fluids _when he was so utterly and completely disgusted by an infinitesimal speck of dust floating in the air anywhere in his line of vision.

It is easier, she thinks, to just assume he had merely come into existence. Had always just _been_.

His clean skin and tidy hair had always been just that—never, _never _soaked so deep in sweat and blood and unspeakable things that his flesh had creased and folded so. He had always just _been_, an entity beyond human, a creature unbound by such dirty beginnings.

Hanji assumes, watching him pick a bit of lint from his shirt she herself had never noticed, that it would just be simpler to believe he had been formed out of beautiful things—although beautiful to her certainly did not mean beautiful to him, with all the disdain he treats her wonders with.

It is easier to believe he had never actually been born, because Levi is too clean and untouchable to come from such raw beginnings.

~~...~~X~~...~~

Hanji detaches herself from reality as often as she can.

It is a necessity when your mind is so wrapped up in tumultuous things. There is a string of words she keeps to herself whenever another person invades upon her thoughts, a wall she built around herself so that her cowardice would be forever hidden.

How many people have died just so that she can learn something new about _them_?

Hanji extracts herself from humanity so that the guilt does not eat her alive.

She reminds herself, frequently, that they are all hideous—at first—and that nobody, _nobody_, came from perfection. And so she is not perfect, can never be, will never be, and that is a reality she will not break from. Because the thought of knowing she is, essentially, the reason they died is more than she can handle most days, and most days were bad days now, when she lets herself think about it. She lets her mind undo her worries and hides behind her walls like the coward she is.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how many people died for the cause.

Hanji distances herself from others as much as she can.

Although, at the end of it all, there is only so much she can do before it all collapses around her in great heaps of regret and fear.

~~...~~X~~...~~

He is the first man she has ever wanted.

This does not make any sense to her—her life has always been devoted to the mission of making things _make sense_, and this—this will never make sense.

Hanji has never been a shy person. Her voice has always erupted from her with all the carelessness she should not be allowed to have and her thoughts will always tumble from her like shots of fire, abrupt and unbidden and unleashed. She has never been afraid to spin a web of her own words around a person so thoroughly they can never remove themselves from them. She has and never will hold herself back for anyone and anything.

And so, when she tells him that she dreams about his naked body, she is not shy about it. She stands with her spine so straight and her chin so high it looks as if she's ready to take on the entire world all at once. Her eyes are locked on his and her voice does not waver. She is so utterly confident there is no room for uncertainty or doubt.

And he, with those narrowed and intense eyes she sees every time she closes her eyes to sleep, tells her very eloquently to _shut the fuck up_.

And no, it does not make any sense to her, in any sort of way she can possibly fathom or reason alone, but he is the first man she has ever wanted, and that is a fact that should not exist.

Hanji has always ever wanted to _know more—_about those monsters that kill all of her friends, those beasts that have locked all of her hideous brethren within stone walls not high enough to protect them anymore. But _this_, this isn't a fight to know more. This doesn't have an objective or a goal or a prize attached to it—just Levi and all of his complexities. That seems more than enough to her.

It does not make any sense that, while her being is consumed by the mission of making things make sense, her mind somehow manages to shove him into the forefront of her thoughts more and more often. That, at night while everyone else sleeps and the darkness is thick enough to suffocate her with memories of lost lives and futile attempts for _more_, she dreams of his body, tangled up with hers—hot, heady, stifling desires rising and falling within her so quickly she loses her train of thought altogether.

The fact that the very edge of his ever-frowning lips manages to come up even a little is enough to make it make sense.

~~...~~X~~...~~

Hanji is not religious—there is no god in war or death or blades dripping with precious rubies running cold—but she whispers prayers against the line of his throat anyway, mumbling pleas that fell short of illusions. The steady beat beneath her lips is enough to make her chest clench and her breath stop short.

She knows the feeling, as he skims the very tips of his calloused fingers across the notches of her spine—it makes her mouth water and her face flush and her eyes glaze and her entire body thrum with _want_. She knows the feeling so well a roll of nostalgia tickles her mind for a moment or two. His tongue is searing all along the side of her jaw and his hands are doing things to her breasts she never thought to dream about. The moonlight does things to his skin she wishes she can write down _somewhere_, only his teeth have nipped the underside of her left breast and her back arches so suddenly she swears she hears a low chuckle rumbling from his chest, and his eyes, they flash silver in the light, whenever the clouds part, like a blade before it cuts or a predator before it kills.

Hanji does not feel afraid.

When his fingers find their way down her stomach, down the subtle dips of muscle gained from a battle they both knew was more lost than won, to the curves of her hips—much more prominent than the narrow angles of his, hidden in shadow beneath the sheets—he wraps his lips around a nipple, and the feeling is burning her down to her center, where one hand continues still. And when his finger pushes into her, mouthing wordlessly against her stomach, it shoots up and fries her nerves and a sound leaves her, one-part _Levi _and one-part _oh_.

The chuckle, this time, is a little more distinguishable.

When his fingers move—in and out, smooth rhythm—she hears it, slick and slippery and just a little sticky. She wonders, for a split second, if it is disgusting. But then he mumbles, against her hip, moving closer to where the fire scorches hottest, something soft and indistinct about how _wet_ she is and his fingers push deeper and—_there, God, yes—_her mouth opens in a soundless cry.

And then the heat of his mouth replaces his hand, and his tongue replaces his fingers, and she nearly screams in the shock, shaking her down to her core. She is biting her knuckles hard enough to bleed, her other hand braiding into the hair at the back of his head to keep him there just a little longer.

She doesn't understand why she wanted him in the first place, but it doesn't matter anymore.

He is beautiful.

But not the beautiful she thinks is beautiful.

When she reaches her climax, his fingers are knuckle deep and they're curling back inside of her to brush that one little spot she hadn't known was there and his tongue is lapping at her slit eagerly, her whines have reached an octave she didn't think was possible and her back is arching so hard the muscles along her body strain to keep her together before she falls apart. His mouth tastes like something bittersweet and tangy when his kisses her, and his tongue is slick with something she doesn't recognize; the liquids he's sucking off of his fingers, she assumes.

She feels boneless.

He murmurs in a deep voice that makes her body quiver thoughtlessly that they are not done, yet, and she manages to smile up at him as he shifts above her. Her mind begs for _more_, anyway.

They are imperfect together, it feels. The way her hands search blindly for a place to settle and the way he repetitively adjusts himself over her, guiding her into the proper positions and grumbling about her _stupid glasses _before pulling them off of her and tossing them onto her desk before she can protest—she wanted to see the moon on his skin, even if the clouds had decided to stay longer this time—and it feels as if, perhaps, it should've made sense before she did all of this.

But things line up.

There, when her legs are in the right place and her hands had finally decided upon his back, he grasped his length in his hand—much, much larger and longer than any of his fingers; she can't tell if she's ready, she really, really can't—and he finds her entrance easily. And when he begins to push himself into her, a vague ache and the burning of her stretching muscles accompanying him, she realizes it probably wasn't as imperfect as she thought.

Things lined up.

His body straightens along hers smoothly and his mouth finds hers quickly. The hard ridges of his abdomen presses against her softer stomach and, when he reaches the hilt—the end of her and him together; strange he fit so nicely inside of her—his hips meet hers fully. Snugly.

So close together she can hardly breathe without it mixing with his.

She is afraid he won't want her so close, but then his eyes meet hers and she realizes, a fluttering spreading out across her nerves, that he is beyond coherent thought by now. A feat, considering who she is dealing with.

Captain Levi is not the kind to lose his ground.

The bed gave a faint creak, muted beneath her loud breaths, his hands settling on either side of her, supporting some of his weight—although he seems determined to press as close as possible. He sighs for her to relax, _too tense_, just before his hips begin to rock, and the sparks of heat start around the friction between her thighs. Thrums of little flickers following his slow, careful movements, and she thinks, foolishly, that this is as good as it'll get.

And then he pulls out, an objection lost on her lips as he pushes back in at the same languid speed. He repeats the motion, and the flickers turn to flares, and her hips snap up in response, meeting him halfway the next time he does it. A soft moan near her ear lets her know she's doing something right, and it hitches to a gasp when she wraps one leg around his waist, forcing him in deeper.

His thrusts quicken slightly, and his hands are grasping her hips, guiding her up to meet him every time. The bed is creaking a little louder, the mattress sinking more and more the harder he presses her down into it. Her nails dig red crescents into his back and her legs tighten around him. That wet, slick sound slaps between them when she breathes his name in his ear, bordering a faint squelch that makes her tremble needlessly. She nibbles, licks, and he shifts, gripping her thighs and spreading them apart for him.

The headboard cracks against the wall now.

She can't catch her breath. He's kissing her wetly, tongue twisting around hers and breaths burning her lips. He's hardening inside of her the louder she whimpers and she can see, glancing down when they part to catch their breaths and the clouds allow the moonlight a sliver to part through, that he is _glistening_ with her liquids—that the skin is flushing red as they go on longer and her labia matches the color almost exactly and that, when he thrusts in deep enough, those wiry black curls of his mix nicely with her soft brown ones—and she mewls, tiny and vulnerable and incredibly _unlike _her, against his lips.

She learns, quickly, that every time she does something right, he changes their position to something even better. He hooks an arm under her knee and pushes the other leg further open, tilts his hips a certain way for her, deepens his pace, and then—he—_fuck—God—please don't stop—_and he smiles very slightly before leaning down to kiss at the pliable flesh of her breasts.

The angry lines she scraped down his back must have burned him, but he does not pay them any mind. He is thrusting hard enough to jar her mind, jostle her thoughts, unravel her very sanity. He fills her so well she doesn't think she can breathe anymore—her gasps get her nowhere; she is breathless, hysterical, hyperventilating—he is giving her no time to catch up. He sucks so hard on her chest and her throat she is sure there are marks to prove his being there, and his hands grip so harshly at her thighs and her hips there will no doubt be bruises there in the morning. But the noises he makes are pleading, and his eyes watch them, connected, so intently it makes something twist inside of her.

"Hanji," he breaks the silence, and her nails sink into his arms. Her name. He never says her name. And his voice. She's never heard his voice so deep and husky. So out of breath and out of sorts.

"I... I can't..." she pants, and the muscles inside of her are beginning to flutter, delicately, and something is pooling in her stomach, something beginning to tighten. "I... Please..."

He licks his thumb, and she has no time to wonder why before he reaches down between them and begins to rub her clitoris in slow, delicious circles. A frenzy begins within her, locking her arms about his neck and coiling her legs around him once more. Pleasure, hot and fiery and electrifying, snaps within her so suddenly, intensified now with his fingers working such wonders—his mouth suckling on some sensitive spot on her pulse point and his hips ramming into hers over and over—

—beauty never meant such sweaty skin and sticky, slippery fluids and profanities meant as endearments growled against her jugular; it never meant rough sex with her dearest friend and comrade; it never meant such wild wants and inexplicable desires; it never meant fucking in the dead of night in a house that feels so much smaller now in a bed that feels so much warmer in the arms of a man that feels so much stronger than she knew him to be—

—beauty never meant the clicking of teeth in the middle of broken kisses—

—beauty never meant Levi, but it does now and that frightens her more than she can bare to handle alone—

_There_. "Oh—Levi—_fuck!_" It rushes over her like a sudden wave of heat during midsummer days. It tears up and down her spine, her back rises off the bed, pressing flush against him. Her toes curl and her eyes roll back and her breath stops altogether. Everything is bleaching to white, everything is engulfed in fire and pleasure and ecstasy and she feels, vaguely, his thrusts speed up to meet her in the middle.

A hiss in her ear—maybe, "_Zoe_," or something along those lines—and his mouth latching onto hers, fingers twisting into her hair to lock her in place and arm wrapping around her to pull her tight against him. And then, as her mind resurfaces briefly, thick ropes of something warm shoot into her, and she jolts, surprised, blinking her eyes wide to look at him, although his eyes are shut, brows furrowing and breath leaving him in relief, before she relaxes and returns his kiss, which is becoming more and more languid, lazy, lethargic. His hips give one, two, three final thrusts, hardly twitching, and then he stops completely, letting her finish the kiss for him.

When he rolls off of her, pulling out entirely, she finds she does not regret a single thing. Liquids trickle out of her and she closes her aching thighs to stop the feeling, a dull pain remaining in the apex between them—perhaps he'd gone too hard, it being her first time—but she does not regret a single thing.

He pulls the sheets over them and drags her over to the dry side of the bed to wrap her up in a hug, letting her rest her head on his chest and patting down her messy hair.

When she lets herself be lulled to sleep by his tuneless humming, she thinks, perhaps, this is the most beautiful thing about Levi.

~~...~~X~~...~~

The reality hits her in the morning.

No, not the fact that she slept with humanity's strongest soldier. No, not the fact that she won't be able to hide the hickeys on her throat because no collar of hers reaches that high. No, not even the fact that the muscles in her legs refuse to work well even as she stretches in bed.

No.

It is the fact that Levi's hair is an absolute fucking mess in the morning. It is the fact that his breath smells sour and pungent instead of that minty freshness she normally catches. It is the fact that there is drool dried on his cheek. It is the fact that he refuses to open his eyes to the sun and buries his head in her chest when she tries to make him do so.

It is the fact that Levi is actually painfully human.

The reality of it hits her so suddenly she grasps his face and kisses him—despite his morning breath and despite the white flecks of dried drool around the side—she kisses him, deep and wet and clicking teeth and all.

And the fact that he lets her, the fact that his fingers even curl around the back of her head and his lips move against hers drowsily, that his eyelids droop sleepily and arms still wind so tight around her—it makes her give a breathless laugh as she realizes how _normal _he is.

And still so perfectly beautiful.

"Let's have sex again, Levi," she insists, pushing him onto his back and climbing onto him. She sighs, happily, because he is already hard against her thigh and his hands find their way to her, _yes_, bruised hips.

"It's too fucking early for this, woman," he mumbles, but does not stop her when she takes a hold of him and guides him into her. He moans so softly when he's completely wrapped up in her heat that she shudders and rocks against him, and he thrusts so shallowly up toward her that an airy laugh leaves her before she can stop it. He looks peaceful and reborn and his movements are slow and minute. He struggles to keep up with her, he grunts when she rolls her hips _just right_ and he flicks his tongue against her nipple when she leans forward low enough for him.

It's because he finishes too quickly that she notices how incredibly human he is—and that he immediately begins to touch and kiss her until she, too, finishes—and she realizes that, despite how utterly _unlike _him this is, this is the most _Levi _he'll ever get. Barely waking up and completely exhausted.

He tucks the tangled hair behind her ears and says, grumpily, "Go to sleep, stupid."

She smiles into his shoulder.

~~...~~X~~...~~

It is easier to think that Levi was born into this world in blood and shit and sweat. It is easier to believe that his mother had cradled him gently and kissed his wrinkly forehead despite all of the ugliness that came with it.

It isn't as difficult to paint the picture, then.

It isn't as implausible.

She can see it clearly—the bright look in his mother's generic brown eyes and the relief hanging thick in the air because—_holy shit he survived_. The smile on his father's face and the breathless laughs of the nurses around them.

She wants to love Levi how his mother loved him—how all mothers love their babies minutes after their births. Disgusting roots and all.

It is not as hard to believe that Levi was born out of ugliness, no matter how beautiful he is now—she no longer wonders why she wanted him so, why her mind is no longer so preoccupied by experiments and chemicals and shining surgical instruments.

He is the most beautiful ugly she has ever seen, and this is a fact more indisputable than her obsessions.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**A.N.****: I adore this pairing, no matter how silly they seem together.**

**I used a poem for this called, "For Nikii" by Renee Schminkey. It's tone is much more upbeat and happy than this fic was, but I love it, so. You can find it on YouTube, Button Poetry channel. **

**Anyway, let me know what you think. Review please! **


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